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Source: (consider it) Thread: Do evangelicals love or hate their Jesus?
no prophet's flag is set so...

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I have spent some time recently with a particular segment of my extended family. I did my best to avoid most of the confrontation, and was mostly successful. Here's what I probably should have said were it possible to be more bluntly honest with family.

It seems obvious that evangelicals love Jesus because of what he did for them. Via Jesus' wondrous grace, by bleeding his precious blood, he saves them from the fires of hell and gives them their ticket to a blissful heaven (along with a Calvinistic wad of cash in this world). For this 'gift' they love him and relentlessly thank him in word, song and dance. But as for Jesus' basic focus on peace, social justice, kindness and charity, most evangelicals reject all of that, as they build their church campuses within a closed network of the like-minded.

Evangelicals reject systematic help to those in poverty, and anything whatsoever that they think sounds like socialism. It's a "no" to food programs, free medical care, free/low cost employment training and education. Against societal institutional help for children. A big "God no" to national daycare programs or head start programs. And we certainly won't feed them school lunches if they haven't had breakfast either. They want punishment for criminals, and don't want to hear about adverse social conditions of whole communities of people that underlie the criminality.

It's all free market, where God shows his pleasure by bestowing success. Thank you God for sending us the right politicians! It's a triumphant 'no' to anything that might address the true needs in society via organized government help (God hates 'big government'!). Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus told people to do. All for the military, while simultaneously worshipping the prince of peace. Yup, they love their Jesus, but not because of what Jesus tried to teach us. Evangelicals have picked the wrong parts of Christianity to emphasize and they haven't earned their happiness by really following their religion's founder, whose core values they violate while saying they don't.

I think evangelicalism needs a major tune-up if not a complete renovation. That's my case.

[ 28. July 2015, 02:40: Message edited by: Gwai ]

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Clint Boggis
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You seem to be describing right-wingers who like the label "Christian", not the real thing.
.

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Lamb Chopped
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These don't resemble any evangelicals I know! Are you picking up your impressions from US media or something?

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Beeswax Altar
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Lord, thank you that no prophet is not like those Evangelicals over there.

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WearyPilgrim
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quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
These don't resemble any evangelicals I know! Are you picking up your impressions from US media or something?

I was going to respond by saying, "With all due respect, what planet are you from?" --- but that would have been unfair, as I know of many evangelical churches and ministers who have a social conscience and are very concerned about the welfare of their neighbors. That said, however, an exceedingly large chunk of American evangelicalism can be characterized exactly as has been described. It is the chief reason why, during the past twenty years, I have distanced myself both from evangelicalism and the Republican Party, having long identified with both.
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Kaplan Corday
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This post reinforces the stereotype of North American insularity, but it is also far from being true even of all North American evangelicalism.
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Lamb Chopped
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You see, that's my problem. I was born in CA (LA county, where a lot of megachurches started?) and now live in the Midwest, and in no case have I encountered evangelicals as described. I see them described that way all over the media, however. Because my real life experience doesn't match up with what the media says, I take a whole shakerful of salt with those reports. In fact, I really think of those-kind-of-evangelicals in the same category with Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. I've never seen proof they actually exist, outside the hallucinatory world of politics.

The behaviors you describe correlate far more closely in my experience with provincialism, racism, and lack of education. I HAVE met those attitudes, but not in any one particular religious group. If anything, the evangelicals I grew up among were far and away more socially conscious and caring than the average person. They were the ones who went down to Skid Row or Ensenada or wherever to serve the people, and they ran 36 hour fasts and such to help the hungry.

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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SvitlanaV2
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no prophet's flag is set so...

I've heard that not all evangelicals in the USA are well off. Do the poorer ones prefer not to receive assistance from the state?

[ 28. July 2015, 00:57: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

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Pomona
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Have you ever met any actual evangelicals?? I mean for a start I'd put even US evangelicals as being mostly non-Calvinistic. Evangelicalism is a BIG and varied group.

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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]

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irish_lord99
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quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
You see, that's my problem. I was born in CA (LA county, where a lot of megachurches started?)

You put in that question mark, and I TOTALLY read that in 'valley girl'. [Snigger]

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Pomona
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
no prophet's flag is set so...

I've heard that not all evangelicals in the USA are well off. Do the poorer ones prefer not to receive assistance from the state?

Probably most evangelicals are of average or low income, like most people. US state assistance is not quite what we'd have here anyway (and varies a lot on a state by state basis). There are certainly those who refuse state assistance for theological reasons but they're on the extreme fringes.

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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]

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Lamb Chopped
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quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
You see, that's my problem. I was born in CA (LA county, where a lot of megachurches started?)

You put in that question mark, and I TOTALLY read that in 'valley girl'. [Snigger]
Like, fer sure, totally!

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Lamb Chopped
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I was surprised by the Calvinist thingy too. Many of the evangelicals I knew (well, most of them!) are Arminians by theology, not Calvinists.

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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SvitlanaV2
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Pomona

If state help has always been fairly sketchy then perhaps poorer evangelicals in the USA simply don't see much point in their clergy making a big fuss about it. Neoliberalism seems to have laid waste to every challenger anyway.

One thing I can't understand is why American evangelicals seem so excited by politics if they believe that the state is supposed to be fairly irrelevant to ordinary people's lives. Do they believe that you have to be close to power in order to ensure that it doesn't become too powerful?

[ 28. July 2015, 01:33: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

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irish_lord99
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quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I was surprised by the Calvinist thingy too. Many of the evangelicals I knew (well, most of them!) are Arminians by theology, not Calvinists.

I'd say the opposite in my experience... which I think illustrates one of the reasons I departed Evangelicalism and one of the many problems with the OP: trying to determine 'what evangelicals believe' is like trying to nail jello to the wall.

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
no prophet's flag is set so...

I've heard that not all evangelicals in the USA are well off. Do the poorer ones prefer not to receive assistance from the state?

I know one, at least, who spends hundreds of dollars a month to purchase health insurance without ACA subsidies because he feels he needs to comply with the law requiring he have heath insurance, but he believes that accepting subsidies is immoral. He's not really making enough money to afford to do this, so he must really believe his actions are righteous in order to persevere.

OTOH, I know a good number of conservative Evangelicals who will admit that they love their 'Obamacare'... just not the rich ones. [Biased]

quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
But as for Jesus' basic focus on peace, social justice, kindness and charity, most evangelicals reject all of that, as they build their church campuses within a closed network of the like-minded.

It seems to me that the objection to social justice is the main thrust of your post, so I'm going to just focus on that for a second. Most evangelicals I know believe in social justice of some sort or another. The golden rule, lazarus and the rich man, the young rich ruler, etc. What most conservative Evangelicals resist is the idea of government enforced social justice, or government enforced charity. Personally, I'm for the government taking a little from the rich to feed the poor; but in order for you to make that case to conservative Evangelicals you're going to have to use the Bible.

Which bring me back to my first point about nailing jello to a wall. The main fallacy I find in Evangelicalism is the way that it seems to have taken sola scriptura to the extreme and all but made the Scriptures worthless through so many different exegesis and 'interpretations'. Basically, if you don't like what your church believe 'based on the Bible' then you can easily find another church that believes like you 'based on the Bible' or you can start your own Evangelical church 'based on the Bible.'

That's why I emphasize conservative Evangelicals. The people you're referring to in your post simply have conformed the scriptures to their own, conservative, image; but they are not representative of Evangelicalism as a whole.

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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain

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Belle Ringer
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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
no prophet's flag is set so...

I've heard that not all evangelicals in the USA are well off. Do the poorer ones prefer not to receive assistance from the state?

Evangelical is a broad word. I know some who live in not fancy but pleasant houses, own ten acres (small town rural land), and believe everything they have or get (social security) they earned by working hard all their life; but believe poorer people are poor by their own fault of not working hard so deserve to suffer and definitely do not deserve "handouts" like school lunches that they didn't work hard to earn.

It's maybe a way of assuring themselves they will never be really poor - they work hard so they are safe. (False safety). Or a way to feel superior to someone?

The people I know who are really poor (live in an old trailer or an unsafe side of town) go to the same churches but are tolerated rather than socially accepted there; they will give you their second pair of jeans or a mattress on their tiny floor because they know what it's like to need the basics.

One friend in real poverty was hired by people from her own church at below minimum wage for work that usually pays much higher; friends boasted of paying her only $5 an hour for hard work in the yard in 100 degree heat, I found cheap labor, yea!"

I have met people No Profit describes, I have met people the opposite, sometimes both in the same church.

Some of the most generous people in my experience are the very poor. Some of the least generous are the never missed a meal but far from rich who are proud of the life they struggled to build and believe their hard work is the whole story - meaning anyone poorer it must be their own fault, must be they didn't bother working hard like we did.

Actually, they aren't against charity, they just think it (a) should come solely from individuals, there should be no government programs helping people, "compelled giving is robbery"; and (b) charity should go only to the "deserving poor"; I haven't yet heard any examples of "deserving poor," I have seen efforts to befriend a desperately poor person criticized because any truly needy person is by definition undeserving.

Not all evangelicals, probably not most, but they truly do exist, whole Bible studies and churches of them in Southern USA Bible Belt!

Local mainline clergy have nothing to do with those churches, refuse to attend their inter-church lunches. One clergy friend shudders at mention of them.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
The main fallacy I find in Evangelicalism is the way that it seems to have taken sola scriptura to the extreme and all but made the Scriptures worthless through so many different exegesis and 'interpretations'. Basically, if you don't like what your church believe 'based on the Bible' then you can easily find another church that believes like you 'based on the Bible' or you can start your own Evangelical church 'based on the Bible.'

However, I'm not sure that going off to found your own church 'based on the Bible' is any worse than, say, remaining in the RCC but disapproving of most of its teachings. The first response is perhaps a more authentic representation of western individualism and personal freedom....

Anyway, moderate mainstream Protestant denominations tolerate a whole lot of different 'interpretations' of the Bible, so long as order is maintained in public worship. The theological colleges accept all kinds of diversity among their academic body and no one minds too much.

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I was surprised by the Calvinist thingy too. Many of the evangelicals I knew (well, most of them!) are Arminians by theology, not Calvinists.

I'd say the opposite in my experience... which I think illustrates one of the reasons I departed Evangelicalism and one of the many problems with the OP: trying to determine 'what evangelicals believe' is like trying to nail jello to the wall.
The famous Bebbington quadrilateral is what most scholars use to define "evangelical" and holds pretty well. Evangelicals are:
• bibliocentric
• Christocentric
• decisionist
• activist*

Beyond that, all bets are off. Like Christianity as a whole, what unites us is those few essentials and not a whole lot else. So, as has been noted, you get Wesleyan evangelicals and Calvinist evangelicals (although in my doctoral defend I had to spend 2 hrs defending my completely tangental use of the phrase "Reformed evangelical"). You have right-wing (politically) evangelicals and left-wing evangelicals. You get charismatic/Pentecostal evangelicals and emphatically cessationist evangelicals. So yeah, once you stray beyond the four elements of the quadrilateral any generalizations become impossible.

*activist gets parsed differently in different settings and eras. Today it most means verbal evangelism, but in the heyday of the 2nd great awakening it meant mostly progressive social justice. In some circles today it means conservative/ repressive social engineering. ymmv.

-cliffdweller, a real-life American lefty Wesleyan evangelical

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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Egeria
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I am certainly ready to believe--I want to believe--that there are many evangelicals who care about social justice.

But my actual experience has been the opposite of LC's. My undergraduate schools were full of evangelicals who made a major production of praying in public (for example, in the University cafeteria) and who made asses of themselves by clumsy proselytizing ("What do you think would happen to you if you died tonight?). (Campus Crusade for Christ [Projectile] , I'm looking at you.) Evangelicals who thought it was spiritually dangerous to study Islamic history or anthropology of witchcraft, courses that I used to satisfy requirements for a religious studies minor. Evangelicals who would actually move away from me at the bus stop when they saw I (a biology major) was carrying a copy of The Origin of Species --as though they thought Satan himself was hiding behind the cover. Evangelicals who were such thorough-going bigots that they didn't believe anyone from a historically-recognized denomination (Lutherans, Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists) could possibly be a real Christian. Some displayed such naivete and social awkwardness that I'm still appalled, years later: the guy who came up to me, a complete stranger, and told me that he used to be a black magician, but now he'd been born again, the young woman who stopped her bicycle in front of me as I was about to cross the street, in order to gush about how much she loved Jesus.

Yes, I had plenty of encounters with evangelicals over the years. The most recent was with a young woman who ran up to me on the street near my home to ask me if I believed in God, then asked if I went to church. I sighed and said yes, I go to that church right now the street. "But is it a Christian church?" I pointed out that most churches are indeed Christian, and that my church is named after a Christian saint--but that wasn't good enough for this rude little twit. In all those encounters with alleged Christians trying to convert me, I have never heard one of them express any concern for the poor, the sick, the elderly, prisoners. Nor have I ever heard any one of them talk about working for peace or being a good steward by protecting God's creation.

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Egeria:
I am certainly ready to believe--I want to believe--that there are many evangelicals who care about social justice.

But my actual experience has been the opposite of LC's. My undergraduate schools were full of evangelicals who made a major production of praying in public (for example, in the University cafeteria) and who made asses of themselves by clumsy proselytizing ("What do you think would happen to you if you died tonight?). (Campus Crusade for Christ [Projectile] , I'm looking at you.) Evangelicals who thought it was spiritually dangerous to study Islamic history or anthropology of witchcraft, courses that I used to satisfy requirements for a religious studies minor. Evangelicals who would actually move away from me at the bus stop when they saw I (a biology major) was carrying a copy of The Origin of Species --as though they thought Satan himself was hiding behind the cover. Evangelicals who were such thorough-going bigots that they didn't believe anyone from a historically-recognized denomination (Lutherans, Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists) could possibly be a real Christian. Some displayed such naivete and social awkwardness that I'm still appalled, years later: the guy who came up to me, a complete stranger, and told me that he used to be a black magician, but now he'd been born again, the young woman who stopped her bicycle in front of me as I was about to cross the street, in order to gush about how much she loved Jesus.

Yes, I had plenty of encounters with evangelicals over the years. The most recent was with a young woman who ran up to me on the street near my home to ask me if I believed in God, then asked if I went to church. I sighed and said yes, I go to that church right now the street. "But is it a Christian church?" I pointed out that most churches are indeed Christian, and that my church is named after a Christian saint--but that wasn't good enough for this rude little twit. In all those encounters with alleged Christians trying to convert me, I have never heard one of them express any concern for the poor, the sick, the elderly, prisoners. Nor have I ever heard any one of them talk about working for peace or being a good steward by protecting God's creation.

There are some real progressive elements of evangelicalism, although many are now calling themselves post-evangelical or neo-evangelical to disassociate themselves from those folks. The Evangelical Covenant Church in the US is one of the smaller but fastest growing denominations in America, with a very strong commitment to evangelical principles (that quadrilateral above) but a very strong commitment to working for social justice (mostly... frustrations abound re failure to address LGBT issues).

Magnuson demonstrates in his work that progressive social action was a key and defining component of early American (and probably British as well but Magnuson's focus is more on US) evangelicalism, especially during the 2nd great awakening.

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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

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Lamb Chopped
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I'm going to take that a step further, as a fairly conservative not-quite evangelical [Biased] . You're talking about Americans here--people whose national culture began with a rejection of political authority, and who have maintained that suspicion for the next 200+ years. (Witness the fact that we still have states as independent and powerful law-making bodies, over against the federal government, for example). We also have a strong heritage of do-it-yourself, homesteading, independent, break-new-ground-and-don't-be-beholden-to-anybody in our culture, and those attitudes are very much alive today.

So when it comes to social justice issues, Americans are on average more likely to think of solutions of the local, do-it-yourself, private-individual/small group type. This includes evangelicals, who are if anything less organized than other mainstream religious groups. Are they likely to think of the government as a trustworthy source of help, guidance, or protection? Well, no. Their first impulse (remember, I'm speaking of general tendencies here, not single individuals or congregations), their first impulse, I say, will be to try to handle the issue locally. Not to appeal to the state or federal government to do something.

Handling things locally can mean anything from organizing a food pantry to taking the youth group to serve in Tijuana. It often means starting a mission society or service group to focus on immigrants, inner city youth, prison ministries, or urban gardening and beehives. It can mean (and has, in my experience) starting tutoring and ESL programs in churches to help those under-served by the public school system. We did that, and it never occurred to us to talk to the local authorities about the issue. After all, they'd been in charge for yonks already, and the problem still existed! So we took matters into our own hands and began after school and evening programs. When the public school district found out and came knocking, we were happy to cooperate as partners--but we did not hand over leadership of the program to them. It never occurred to us to do so. And if it had, we would have dismissed the idea on the grounds that they would doubtless screw it up. Because that's what we expect from our government. [Hot and Hormonal] Not that we dislike them, we just don't trust them.

And most of this ministry stuff flies under the radar,] in terms of media coverage. We (ordinary American Christians, including evangelicals) don't usually issue press releases about it, because again, most of us just don't think that way. We don't have media skills, most of us, and we think on an individual or small group level. At most we might put up signs in the neighborhood, or write something for the denominational magazine. Though a great many evangelicals have no larger association that publishes such a thing, or maintains regular professional media contact.

The result of all this is that the loudmouth so-called evangelicals who DO make it into the media tend to be the freaks--the reality-show people, the politicians trying to appeal to a larger voting base, the televangelists, the scandal-ridden megapastors and social extremists. And yes, these people seem to be 90% idiots in my oh-so-scientific opinion. But then, extreme sells. Nobody's going to pop down to the nearest evangelical church with a microphone to hear ordinary people talk about their food pantry or the job workshops they are running for long-term unemployed people. That's not exciting or titillating or scandalous. That's just what churches DO. Yawn.

TL;DR version: You're blaming evangelicals for characteristics that are if anything linked to the national culture, not religion.

[ 28. July 2015, 02:31: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Lamb Chopped
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Egeria, those are college students. I don't know about you, but I was pretty dumb and callow at that age--certainly lacking in a lot of social graces. has your experience with, say, the 40 yo's been the same?

For what it's worth, I met (and suffered) a lot of those people too, but I think they pretty much grew out of it.

[ 28. July 2015, 02:35: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Prester John
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Can someone fix the title to this screed? I can't help but wonder why buck evangelicals are being left out.
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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by Prester John:
Can someone fix the title to this screed? I can't help but wonder why buck evangelicals are being left out.

The bucks are notoriously ambivalent about Jesus. It's only the does that have that love/hate thing going on with our boyfriend Jesus.
[Snigger]

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Gwai
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Yes, I'd be quite happy for an excuse to fix the title, truthfully, so thanks Prester John!

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Mere Nick
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Thanks, Lamb Chopped. I don't know if our congregation is labelled evangelical or not. Either way, what draws us together is a common faith, not a common ideology. I trust Jesus but not the government. If a fellow christian has a different view, oh well.

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no prophet's flag is set so...

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quote:
Originally posted by Egeria:
I am certainly ready to believe--I want to believe--that there are many evangelicals who care about social justice.

But my actual experience has been the opposite of LC's. My undergraduate schools were full of evangelicals who made a major production of praying in public (for example, in the University cafeteria) and who made asses of themselves by clumsy proselytizing ("What do you think would happen to you if you died tonight?). (Campus Crusade for Christ [Projectile] , I'm looking at you.) Evangelicals who thought it was spiritually dangerous to study Islamic history or anthropology of witchcraft, courses that I used to satisfy requirements for a religious studies minor. Evangelicals who would actually move away from me at the bus stop when they saw I (a biology major) was carrying a copy of The Origin of Species --as though they thought Satan himself was hiding behind the cover. Evangelicals who were such thorough-going bigots that they didn't believe anyone from a historically-recognized denomination (Lutherans, Catholics, Episcopalians, Methodists) could possibly be a real Christian. Some displayed such naivete and social awkwardness that I'm still appalled, years later: the guy who came up to me, a complete stranger, and told me that he used to be a black magician, but now he'd been born again, the young woman who stopped her bicycle in front of me as I was about to cross the street, in order to gush about how much she loved Jesus.

Yes, I had plenty of encounters with evangelicals over the years. The most recent was with a young woman who ran up to me on the street near my home to ask me if I believed in God, then asked if I went to church. I sighed and said yes, I go to that church right now the street. "But is it a Christian church?" I pointed out that most churches are indeed Christian, and that my church is named after a Christian saint--but that wasn't good enough for this rude little twit. In all those encounters with alleged Christians trying to convert me, I have never heard one of them express any concern for the poor, the sick, the elderly, prisoners. Nor have I ever heard any one of them talk about working for peace or being a good steward by protecting God's creation.

I have no idea about American evangelicalism except the terrible crap I see on TV by accident. It may be that my relatives have gotten their ideas from USA TV, but I think it is actually from their mega-church in eastern Canada. My first paragraph says this was prompted by spending time with extended family, in case you didn't read that.

Egeria's post describes the sort of experience rather well, but Egeria's post is of more extreme things. When a middle of the road Anglican church is questioned about it's acceptability, yes, I was offended. Yes Beeswax, I am not like the evangelicals over there, though the terseness of the post makes me think I may have offended you, not my intent.

I have no idea what Arminian is. When people think that god wants them to be prosperous and successful, the conventional usage where I live is to label this Calvinist.

I take irish_lord99's distinction re 'conservative' evangelicals as helpful. I have no experience of any other kinds, with this group of extended family and locally. Evangelical people here seem to be politically conservative, are terribly worried about their tax dollars being spent on undeserving people, complain about First Nations people (aboriginal) and immigrants, begrudge any monies spent on social services. It is the complaintativeness about all of this that really bothers me. It's the "I know I'm saved and a good person" that really bothers me. The preparedness to confidently judge.

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

but believe poorer people are poor by their own fault of not working hard so deserve to suffer and definitely do not deserve "handouts" like school lunches that they didn't work hard to earn.

The above is abstracted from a larger post. How much of this is a typical evangelical attitude?

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Lamb Chopped
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When I mentioned "Arminian," what I was referring to is their tendency to emphasize human choice, human free will--in other words, the exact opposite of classical Calvinism with its double predestination. Of course both of these are strictly speaking about salvation, and not (say) economic prosperity. But both positions can be abused in such a way that they lead to victim-blaming the poor:

Twisted Arminian reasoning: "They didn't make the r right choices."
Twisted Calvinist reasoning: "They aren't among God's chosen, so they don't receive his blessing."

Please notice I said "twisted"!

I think these bad attitudes come from being human jackasses, not from the religion itself. And there are evangelical jackasses, just as there are Lutheran ones, Anglican ones, etc. etc. etc.

Again, I really think you're taking cultural or even human-race problems and pinning them to evangelicalism specifically--and that's a mistake.

PS do you have much experience with evangelicals outside of your extended family? Because I have anti-social justice jackasses in my family too, but I wouldn't call them representative of their faith group (which appears to be agnostic/atheist).

ETA: oops, sorry. I see now you say you have no experience outside of extended family/local group. I can appreciate they get under your skin, but suggest you not tar the rest of evangelicalism with the same brush.

[ 28. July 2015, 03:51: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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cliffdweller
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:

I have no idea what Arminian is. When people think that god wants them to be prosperous and successful, the conventional usage where I live is to label this Calvinist.

quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:

but believe poorer people are poor by their own fault of not working hard so deserve to suffer and definitely do not deserve "handouts" like school lunches that they didn't work hard to earn.

The above is abstracted from a larger post. How much of this is a typical evangelical attitude?
This sounds not so much like Calvinism (or Reformed) v Arminianism (or Wesleyan) but more like prosperity gospel. The notion that God materially blesses the faithful and curses the wicked, so your material circumstances are a reflection of your inner righteousness and God's favor. This is fortunately a relatively small segment of evangelicalism, but unfortunately, in the US they are a particularly powerful and vocal segment, and close to the center of political influence. IMHO, it's not just wrong, but heretical.

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Lamb Chopped
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Certainly heretical.

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

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Belle Ringer
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quote:
Originally posted by Egeria:
I am certainly ready to believe--I want to believe--that there are many evangelicals who care about social justice... Nor have I ever heard any one of them talk about working for peace or being a good steward by protecting God's creation.

I've read articles saying evangelical leaders are beginning to talk about the environment. Most of my evangelical friends think social justice and environment irrelevant because the only thing that matters is getting people saved, doesn't matter how many starve to death or die of untreated diseases so long as they die saved.

If you really believe that you really won't put money and time into social justice and environment instead of evangelism. (Although, if you really believed it wouldn't you be out evangelizing instead of watching football?)

As some others have pointed out, some of these churches do under the radar things, including the hard work on taking on a few long term relationships instead of just handing out $20 to someone you see only once a month asking for help with the light bill.

One local "mainliners are all going to hell" church has a trailer housing 4 homeless men, the church helps them get off booze, learn job skills, find a job, become able to move out on their own. A few men a year get their lives turned around. Although my friends in that church don't believe there is such a thing as "deserving poor," it's their church helping a few alcoholic homeless men become reintegrated. They recently added a trailer for homeless women. A few throwaways a year being saved from the streets doesn't get written up in the news.

The new soup kitchen in town is run by mainline churches including Methodist and Baptist; the adult literacy program was started by black churches, the no strings food pantry by the Hispanic Baptist church.

None of these get publicity; and the rare times they get mention no one names any church as being the founding cause and ongoing support of the program.

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Barnabas62
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This thread, like a number we've had in the past, shows the danger of generalisation. What really matters is having the guts to challenge the specific evils of sectarian attitudes (whether political or religious) which are found in the groups we live with. You know, like Jesus challenged them in the culture into which he was born. Like visceral hatred of all Samaritans for example. Or indifference to the heavy burdens carried by many poor people.

It always seems odd to me when folks claim to love Jesus, to acknowledge him as Lord, yet have blind spots about stuff like that. A strange mixture of ignorance and misplaced superiority seems to get in the way of the challenges of discipleship. Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Sometimes it takes a while for people to realise how much their particular comfort zones are precisely the 'deny yourself' territory about which Jesus also spoke.

Where any particular expression of Christianity is blind, or selective, about these kinds of challenges, its leaders and members are missing the mark. That's a different kind of mark-missing to not always living up to the mark. We all fail to some extent at that.

IME you find Christians of all kinds who know this stuff and Christians of all kinds who are still finding it out. Are evangelicals particularly prone to these kinds of social justice ignorances? Not where I live. We've discussed pond differences before, but reading Lamb Chopped and others here seems to take me back to where I started. Beware the generalisations which flow from labelling.

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Baptist Trainfan
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This. [Overused]
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Adeodatus
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No prophet..., I mean this in all Christian love or whatever - I think you need to spend less time with your family.

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mr cheesy
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Evangelical is essentially a meaningless phrase. As an attempt to label particular behaviours, it therefore fails.

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Barnabas62
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
The famous Bebbington quadrilateral is what most scholars use to define "evangelical" and holds pretty well. Evangelicals are:
• bibliocentric
• Christocentric
• decisionist
• activist*

Beyond that, all bets are off. Like Christianity as a whole, what unites us is those few essentials and not a whole lot else.
[snip]
-cliffdweller, a real-life American lefty Wesleyan evangelical

I think that's a bit more than meaningless. But cliffdweller has it right, I think. A good question is why?

Historically, I think there has been a good deal of argumentativeness, coupled with a fair bit of hi-jacking of the term. What I think we need to do more is to figure out how to live more harmoniously with our differences. Protestants as a whole have always had this tendency to be fissiparous. That isn't good. It happens also to be a kind of disobedience, for example of the long prayer of Jesus in John 17.

Like most Christians, we can be less than bibliocentric when it suits us, whatever we may claim.

We could do with fewer divisive policies, and more inclusive pilgrimages; that's not easy but it might be worth a try. Not so much a new script, more a kindlier, gentler, attitude towards our differences. Alienation is a pretty poisonous fruit.

[ 28. July 2015, 10:15: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]

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mr cheesy
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Well, OK it has a definition, but the thing is that there is no "evangelical" behaviour because there is nothing, specifically, that evangelicals believe or behave in common.

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Barnabas62
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mr cheesy

A bit overstated, I reckon. You won't find many evangelicals (or indeed Christians from any group) arguing against the command to love God wholeheartedly and our neighbour as ourselves. That's common ground.

We divide over "Yes but how". Does that make the principles useless? I don't think so. We may aim and miss, but at least we have an inkling about the target.

But you won't get any argument from me over any assertion that our divisions are scandalous.

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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

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mr cheesy
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I think there is very little in common between Evangelicals. Given that some do not regard other evangelicals as Christian, never mind actually "evangelical", then I think it is meaningless to try to talk about what "evangelicals" do or act.

[ 28. July 2015, 10:30: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

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arse

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As a tangent, but hopefully one which sheds some light on the issue of how difficult it is to pin these things down ...

I won't provide the references (due to time constraints), but I read an interesting piece about a research study that was undertaken in Greece and other Mediterranean countries - with a largely Orthodox or Roman Catholic population.

The survey contained phrases and terms that are commonly associated with evangelicals - and a surprising number of people signed up to them - because they considered them congruent with a broadly conservative theological framework as expressed within Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy.

Does that mean that these people were evangelicals without realising it?

I suspect, had the questions been phrased in a way that identified these elements as 'evangelical' concerns then the proportion of people agreeing with them would have diminished.

Interesting.

Back to the OP, though - yes, I think evangelicalism as a whole - even in North America - is a lot broader than is often popularly supposed.

If your relatives are like that it might be more a feature of your relatives and their apparent isolation than anything else.

I think Belle Ringer raises some interesting points -- even in a part of the USA associated with ultra-conservative forms of evangelical religion there are instances of evangelicals doing socially-active and useful things under the radar and without anyone else noticing.

The self-help thing, as Lamb Chopped and others have noted, is much more a feature of US culture as a whole and isn't restricted to the evangelical constituency.

I see enough stuff posted on line by conservative US RCs and Orthodox to see that many of them share the same kind of values as the religious-right does in its more conservative evangelical form - ie. small government, suspicion of authority and of government in general, a sense that poor people get what's coming to them because of their fecklessness, as well as very conservative views on Dead Horse issues.

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Gamaliel
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I've not met many evangelicals who wouldn't consider other forms of evangelical as Christian - but some such do exist.

I don't think they are at all common or representative, though.

Heck, most evangelicals I know these days would be happy to acknowledge that even some of those nasty RCs and others from the historic churches could possibly be 'saved' ...

Although some would certainly consider that these 'true believers' shouldn't remain within the RCC ...

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IngoB

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quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Where any particular expression of Christianity is blind, or selective, about these kinds of challenges, its leaders and members are missing the mark.

No prophet is confusing vaguely centre-left-wing "European" politics with the gospel. And he is pissed off that Evangelicals purportedly confuse vaguely centre-right-wing "American" politics with the gospel.

In the end this boils down to confusing the cardinal virtue of prudence with the theological virtue of charity. Running the state, i.e., taking care of the common good of a society, is first and foremost a matter of prudence. Politics is polarised into camps that propose specific ways for prudently optimising the common good. This is not as such a Christian matter! All Christianity says about that is that you should indeed exercise your prudence to the best of your ability. You shouldn't for example just blindly propose policies for ideological reasons. However, politics exists because the optimal solution to social problems is not obvious. One can in good conscience come to the conclusion that prudence dictates centre-left or centre-right wing politics, and perhaps even left or right wing politics. None of this is per se incompatible with being a Christian.

Charity is a theological virtue, and grace does not destroy but perfects nature. In practice this means that any politics, any prudent optimisation of the common good, will have gaps and failure points. We are very used to identifying them on centre-right politics. Charity then indeed mostly means supporting people that fall through the cracks. A soup kitchen for example is the charitable Christian response to a centre-right style prudent optimisation of society. It is however wrong to claim that the existence of the soup kitchen shows that the politics is anti-Christian. That's not how that works...

We are less used as Christians to deal with the gaps and failure points of centre-left politics. We may for example think of the pressure to homogenise achievement ("tall poppy syndrome") and the stifling of initiative. A charitable Christian response to centre-left style prudent optimisation of society may hence be to run a school for the gifted or perhaps create venture funding.

The gospels tell us of a time and a society that in modern terms is very right wing, and arguably not even defensible at all as a prudent optimisation of the common good. Jesus however did not rebel against this, he did not call for a social revolution or even just a policy change at the political level. He instead gave Caesar his dues, and then in Christian charity dealt with the gaps and failure points of the society as it was. It is thus the wrong conclusion to elevate these actions as such to the measure of politics. His actions were not independent of the contemporary social reality. If our society excels at taking care of widows and orphans, then they are not any longer the obvious focus of Christian charity. That is an anachronistic view of society, which here somewhat unusually projects the past onto the present.

Find prudent solutions for the common good. Battle over different suggestions for that in the field of politics. The world of Caesar is the realm of the cardinal virtues that we Christians share with the pagans. And then, deal with the inevitably resulting problems of every human solution to complex social problems in Christian charity. Whatever they may be. But do not pretend that Christianity favours one prudential path over the other. It generally doesn't, at least not on matters of social organisation. Christianity is not politics.

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I've not met many evangelicals who wouldn't consider other forms of evangelical as Christian - but some such do exist.

I don't think they are at all common or representative, though.

Heck, most evangelicals I know these days would be happy to acknowledge that even some of those nasty RCs and others from the historic churches could possibly be 'saved' ...

Although some would certainly consider that these 'true believers' shouldn't remain within the RCC ...

Part of my 'mission' within my (charismatic/evangelical) church is persuading convinced and convincing Christians within it, many of whom work with food banks, night shelters and other social action programs that Roman Catholics too can be saved. The latter are very into social action and their style of worship is occasionally indistinguishable from ours, especially when Fr Holything isn't there.

When the leaders of a new church set a distinct tone and style it will often take on a lot of their traits and personality.

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Just to add to the din, this sounds like an American cultural issue. For all my gripes with British evangelicals, social justice is usually top of their agenda—and that is a real strength of theirs. A large number of British evangelicals are lefties and even socialists. I can remember one American woman being taken aback when she saw that the church cafe sold only Fair Trade products: 'isn't that socialist?!', she blurted out. I think there's a nuanced discussion to be had—and I certainly share your outrage—but I think at least some of things you are bringing up are part of right-wing American culture shone through some bizarre evangelical prism.

I'd put it this way: American evangelics will spend lots of money to supply poor people with bibles, whereas most of the evangelicals in the UK would first see that they are fed, have access to housing and education first and foremost. God—I sound like I almost like them!

K.

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IconiumBound
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ISTM that the type of Christian (Right-wing no change)who would call themselves an "evangelical" is not exemplifying a true evangelical life style. That is, to seek to bring others to a relationship with Jesus in a friendly non-threatening way. Their certaintude blocks any attempt to move into reasonable relations.
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Barnabas62
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IngoB

Was Archbishop Camara wrong?

I don't think politics and faith are distinct categories, nor do I think you think that. There is a point where the exercise of charity will, inevitably, move people into questions normally seen as political. Grace may indeed perfect that expression of human nature we describe as political. Echoing Archbishop Camara's well known saying, the radical evangelical Jim Wallis observed that Christians are often very good about rescuing drowning people from rivers; not necessarily so good at asking the question who is pushing them in upstream.

It may of course be that you see faults in the movement known as Catholic Liberation Theology (of which Archbishop Camara was an advocate). So I'm wondering if you could extend your critique in that direction.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
I've read articles saying evangelical leaders are beginning to talk about the environment. Most of my evangelical friends think social justice and environment irrelevant because the only thing that matters is getting people saved, doesn't matter how many starve to death or die of untreated diseases so long as they die saved.

I think the difference in the UK is that for many different kinds of Christians here, evangelicals included, getting into social justice etc. issues issues is viewed as a form of witnessing, as a way of getting Christian voices and efforts into the public sphere where they'll be noticed. The conversions (although not all Christians like this word) may come later.

The British public don't really respond to calls for their salvation these days. The residual Christianity that they feel is much more about doing good than it is about a spiritual experience, so I suppose the churches have a better chance of making an impression if they emphasise good deeds and criticise governments and large corporations.

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no prophet's flag is set so...

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I am starting to feel somewhat reassured by some of your erudite responses. I cannot abide the disregard for others that I was exposed to so blatantly and strongly. I need reassurance that it is 'others first', not selfishly 'my salvation first'. I also need to figure out how to say something, anything at all with the least amount of politeness, and not just listen, go for very very brisk walks, and find little bits of distracting activity: round 2 starts in 3 weeks when they return for another week.

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Certainly heretical.

I wish it was hysterical.

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Baptist Trainfan
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I need reassurance that it is 'others first', not selfishly 'my salvation first'.

I think that Evangelical forms of Christianity can indeed be excessively centred on "me and my relationship with God". I think that was particularly strong in - say - the late 19th and early 20th century, although even then there were exceptions. It may still be true of Charismatic/Pentecostal expressions of the faith, with their emphasis on experience. But who's to say that it's never found in MOTR traditions as well?

However I do think that things have changed and that Evangelicals are much more socially aware ... as indeed some were as long ago as the late 17/early 1800s (the "Clapham Sect", for instance, with its concerns about the Slave Trade and children working in factories).

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quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I think the difference in the UK is that for many different kinds of Christians here, evangelicals included, getting into social justice etc. issues issues is viewed as a form of witnessing, as a way of getting Christian voices and efforts into the public sphere where they'll be noticed. The conversions (although not all Christians like this word) may come later.

Yes, and I don't like this as I think it's unethical. We are to do good, help the needy and aim to restructure society because these are inherently Christly things to do, not because they "create a good impression" or (even worse) make us feel good.

Of course, if the effect of what we're doing is to offer a good witness, that's all well and good. But it's a virtuous by-product of our work, not its primary intent.

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